Flashversary: CHAMPIONS

WELCOME TO WINNING DAY! The winners’ wall here at Flash! Friday swirls in colors and textures as magnificently diverse as the community that built it, and the #Flashversary celebrations have proved no different. The top ten stories range wildly in genre and style, authored by both familiar names and new ones (hey there, newbies! great to meet you!). The #Flashversary judge panel–including myself–read all stories completely blind, relying on thoughtful criteria to choose the entries to move to the Top 25. What a hoot it was discovering who had written them!

In the end fresh, clever approaches to the prompt which dragged our eyebrow-raising judges on emotional journeys propelled entries to the top, sometimes past strong and yes (don’t tell my students!) more technically correct stories, yielding a creative and compelling Top Ten any judge would feel proud of. You’d better believe the overall quality of ALL stories made choosing…